POPPERIAN SELECTIONISM AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR
EDUCATION, OR ‘WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE MYTH OF LEARNING BY
INSTRUCTION FROM WITHOUT?’
Invited presentation at Rethinking Popper, a conference held in
the Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the
Czech Republic, Prague, 10-14 September 2007
Joanna Swann
School of Education
University of Brighton
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9PH
United Kingdom
joannaswann@yahoo.co.uk
ABSTRACT
Most educationists adhere to the idea that learning is an active process
requiring of the learner a personal interpretation of experience and the
construction of her or his own knowledge. Few educationists, however, are
prepared to countenance that in learning all new expectations and other
ideas are created wholly from within the individual – that is, by the learner.
It is generally assumed there is some transference of information to the
learner from the social or physical environment, and the processes of
interpretation and construction take place after this basic information has
been passively received. Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology challenges
this assumption. Following Popper, one can argue that there is no learning
by instruction from without the learner, and the effect of the social and
physical environment is purely one of selection: the environment serves
merely to challenge the learner’s expectations (implicit and explicit) and
potentially eliminate them. If, as Popper proposed, learning is invariably a
creative and critical process of trial and error-elimination, then the
advancement of learning through education and teaching is not, as is widely
assumed, a matter of presenting people with basic information and helping
them to interpret and utilize it; instead it is a matter of encouraging people to
create ideas and test them.
Most academics refuse to take Popperian selectionism seriously. Even
among those who are familiar with Popper’s epistemology, his
characterization of learning as ‘imaginative criticism’ goes unheeded; the
critical dimension of learning is, of course, acknowledged, but not the
centrality of imagination. The case for Popperian selectionism and against
the idea of learning by instruction from without needs, therefore, to be
restated. This is the first of two tasks addressed in the paper. The second is
that of challenging most of what takes place under the banner of formal
education.
© Joanna Swann, 2007
1
1. INTRODUCTION1
I am very grateful to Zuzana Parusnikova for inviting me to present a paper
at Rethinking Popper. As an educationist, I have used Karl Popper’s
evolutionary epistemology in the pursuit of the improvement of educational
practice.
I’ve drawn on his epistemology to challenge widespread
assumptions about learning, particularly those embedded in the
organisation and conduct of teaching. In short, I have been more concerned
to exploit and disseminate Popper’s ideas than to criticise them.
As Popper did so much in his lifetime that is of value to humankind, it
seems churlish to suggest that he didn’t quite do enough. Nevertheless, I
propose that there is a crucially important aspect of learning – the creative
aspect – which Popper did not explore in any depth (at least not in his
published works). Popper clearly acknowledged that learning is a creative
process, and a theory of creativity in learning can be drawn out of, and
developed from, his evolutionary epistemology. But the function of criticism
in the growth of knowledge was his primary concern; criticism, rather than
creativity, is at the heart of his non-inductivist and anti-justificationist
philosophy. Popperians too have largely focused on the significance of
criticism in the development of objectified knowledge, and they, by and large,
have neglected to explore creativity as a necessary feature of any situation in
which learning can be said to have taken place.
This conference provides an opportunity for a collaborative
exploration of Popper’s selectionist theory of learning, and its implications
both for the organisation of education and our practice as teachers. We are
all teachers in that there are occasions when we speak to and show things to
others with the intention that they may learn; to be human is to engage in
(and receive) teaching of this kind. Many of us are also teachers in the
formal sense; that is, we have a professional role as teachers in an
educational institution.
In this presentation I will not assume that everyone at this session
accepts Popper’s published ideas about learning, nor even that everyone has
a good understanding of them. So I will begin by outlining Popper’s
selectionist theory, or, rather, my interpretation of it, including my analysis
of creativity and criticism in learning. I’ll then summarise the principal
arguments in defence of Popper’s selectionist theory and against what seems
to be the most common alternative view – which embraces what I
disparagingly refer to as the myth of learning by instruction from without
(Swann, 2007c). Finally, I will outline the educational implications of my
discussion and I’ll address the question of what is to be done about the
myth.
2. LEARNING BY INSTRUCTION FROM WITHIN
The following quotations summarise Popper’s thesis with regard to learning:
We do not discover new facts or new effects by copying them, or by
inferring them inductively from observation, or by any other method
of instruction by the environment.
(Popper, 1994, p. 9)
© Joanna Swann, 2007
2
[W]e learn only through trial and error. Our trials … are always our
hypotheses. They stem from us, not from the external world. All we
learn from the external world is that some of our efforts are mistaken.
(Popper, 1999, p. 47)
The process of learning, of the growth of subjective knowledge, is
always fundamentally the same. It is imaginative criticism. This is
how we transcend our local and temporal environment by trying to
think of circumstances beyond our experience: by criticizing the
universality, or the structural necessity, of what may, to us, appear …
as the ‘given’ or as ‘habit’; by trying to find, construct, invent, new
situations – that is, test situations, critical situations; and by trying to
locate, detect, and challenge our prejudices and habitual
assumptions.
(Popper, 1979[1972], p. 148)
Although Popper was vehemently opposed to the discussion of words
and their meaning (Popper, 1992[1974], § 7), my experience in talking about
learning with educationists has led me to accompany any exposition of a
Popperian view of learning with what I term an evolutionary definition. I
propose that learning is best defined as what takes place when an organism
develops, in the context of experience, new expectations, specifically
expectations that are not purely an outcome of genetic inheritance or
random mutation (Swann, 2003b, 2007a). Perhaps I should stress that the
word ‘expectation’ is used here both for conscious and unconscious
phenomena; and it is not confined to ideas which the organism – the
individual – would itself be capable of articulating.
To clarify what is not learning: An amoeba may respond evasively
when it encounters a toxic fluid; that is, its movements are not entirely
random. Its response to this kind of situation can become more efficient, in
that the period of time it takes to run through its repertoire of genetically
programmed behaviours can become shorter. But aside from this efficiency
gain, the repertoire remains unchanged (Petersen, 1988, pp. 34-35). An
amoeba solves problems, but it is not a learning organism because it does
not expand its repertoire of expectations and responses beyond those that
are genetically programmed.
You might wish to suggest that there is sleight of hand in what I have
said so far, namely that I am defining learning in terms of newness, so it is
hardly surprising that I argue that creativity is central to learning. But it
seems to me that some kind of newness is inherent in what people are
mostly talking about when they talk about learning. The issue about which
there is the most widespread disagreement concerns the process by which
the newness comes about, namely what happens when learning takes place.
Significantly, changes in expectation are accompanied by changes in
what the organism is capable of experiencing and in its potential responses
to its environment – what it is capable of doing and is inclined to do. An
ability to learn is a specific form of adaptability, and the ability to adapt
confers, at least potentially, an evolutionary advantage. Although learning is
dependent on maturation, it involves more than the fruition of inborn
characteristics.
A learning organism develops new expectations and
© Joanna Swann, 2007
3
capabilities that may enable it to function more effectively in the situations
in which it finds itself.
According to Popper’s selectionism, the process by which expectations
develop always involves trial and error-elimination, a critical and creative
process of explicit or, more often, implicit problem solving.
All our
knowledge is either inborn or created by us through a process of trial and
error. A learning organism is one that, so to speak, instructs itself from
within – in the face of challenges from without. The effect of the social and
physical environment is purely one of selection, the environment serving
merely to challenge the learner’s expectations (implicit and explicit) and
potentially eliminate them.
The response of many people to this idea is incredulity: surely, they
say, we do not engage in trial and error-elimination when listening to a set of
instructions, chatting to our friends, and so on. I would argue that we do.
Despite the many occasions when we are aware of our learning, most
moment-by-moment learning takes place without our being aware of what
has been learned, or even that learning has taken place. In order to
understand what someone is saying we must solve a variety of problems;
this we do rapidly and mostly at an unconscious level. We do not passively
absorb what is said and there is no direct transfer of information. Whether
or not we are aware of it, we are critical and creative listeners. In general,
when learning is seen to take place in response to instruction (which is
distinguishable from learning by instruction – Swann & Burgess, 2005), the
learner will have made and tested informed guesses with regard both to the
nature of the situation and what the teacher was trying to convey.
You may be disinclined to acknowledge the imagination required to
engage with what I’m saying, not least because such an activity is
commonplace and unremarkable.
The process itself is not entirely
conscious, so you will not be aware of more than a few aspects of it. But I
put it to you that the process of listening and making sense of what is being
said is hugely creative.
3. CREATIVITY AND CRITICISM IN LEARNING
It seems likely that most participants at this conference will have some
familiarity with Popper’s simplified schema of conjecture and refutation
(Popper, 1979[1972], p. 243), but I need to re-present it here in order to
highlight the way in which the process it describes is both creative and
critical:
P1  TS  EE  P2
In this schema P represents a problem, TS a trial solution applied to the
problem, and EE stands for error-elimination, the means by which some
trials are eliminated. The elimination of an error gives rise to a new
situation and, potentially, a new problem.
For an organism to have a problem, it must be dissatisfied with, and
thus implicitly or explicitly critical of, the state of affairs in which it finds
itself – ‘hungry’, for example – and it must wish, by implication at least, to
achieve a state of affairs it deems to be better, such as ‘not hungry’. But,
© Joanna Swann, 2007
4
contrary to common understanding, problems have to be created rather than
merely ‘identified’. It should be noted that many mismatches between
expectation and experience remain unproblematised, and any one mismatch
may be turned into a number of different problems (Swann, 1999, 2003b).
Creativity may also occur at TS, when the organism responds to a
problem with a trial solution: the learning individual may invent a course of
action, a trial solution, which is entirely new to it, or it may adapt (rather
than – as in the case of the amoeba – merely ‘contract’) a course of action
that has already been developed.
Error-elimination, EE, though clearly a critical aspect of problem
solving, may also – in the case of some human learning – be the result of a
creative act. While most animals are largely constrained to discover errors
and limitations by happenstance, humans are well equipped to search for
error, that is, to create test situations. This is one of the principal means by
which we accelerate our learning. In general, by discovering error and
specific limitation, we are put under pressure to create new problems, and
with them new solutions.
Criticism is often construed in terms of explicit statements of
disapproval or rejection, such as ‘That’s wrong’ and ‘I’ve made a mistake’.
But this view is too narrow. Criticism is also embedded in the thought that
‘I could try something else’ or the question ‘What else might I do?’ And it is
present in any unstated and even unconscious degree of dissatisfaction that
leads an individual to decide to do something rather than nothing, or to do
one thing rather than another. In general, the value of criticism is to be
judged by its effect in a particular circumstance. A criticism, even if valid,
may be inappropriate if ultimately it serves to stifle creativity and inhibit
further trial and error-elimination (Swann, 1983).
4. THE MYTH OF LEARNING BY INSTRUCTION FROM WITHOUT
Many educationists adhere to the idea that learning is an active process
requiring of the learner a personal interpretation of experience and the
construction of her or his own knowledge. Yet few educationists, it seems,
are prepared to countenance that in learning all new expectations and other
ideas are created wholly from within the individual – that is, by the learner.
It is generally assumed there is some transference of information to the
learner from the social or physical environment, and the processes of
interpretation and construction take place after this basic information has
been passively received. With regard to hearing what someone says, the
common assumption seems to be that some basic elements of what is being
said are transferred, and what the effective listener then does is process
these elements in such a way as to construct meaning.
What is at issue here is a choice between two competing theories.
One proposes that ‘No learning takes place by instruction from without’, the
other that ‘Some learning takes place by instruction from without’. Although
both theories are about events in the world, neither has the potential to be
refuted by reference to empirical evidence. The competing theories are, in
the Popperian sense, metaphysical rather than scientific, though they may
nonetheless lead to the development of testable, that is, refutable,
hypotheses (Swann, 2003a).
© Joanna Swann, 2007
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Perhaps you are thinking: ‘If the competing theories which support,
respectively, “No learning takes place by instruction from without” and
“Some learning takes place by instruction from without” are not susceptible
to refutation by reference to empirical evidence, why should we care to argue
about them?’ To which I would respond that the competing theories,
regardless of their metaphysical status, have implications for what we do,
and that the practice of education assumes to a large extent that some
learning takes place by instruction from without. I further propose that if
education were to be reconceived and redesigned in light of Popperian
selectionism and the idea that no learning takes place by instruction from
without, then the outcomes would be both significantly different and
arguably better.
Before looking at the implications of Popperian selectionism for
educational practice, there are three important philosophical points to be
made against the idea that some learning takes place by instruction from
without.
First, whereas Popperian selectionism presents a biological
description of what happens when learning takes place, the idea that we
receive informational elements (sense data) from the environment relies
heavily on analogy and metaphor. The learner is conceived as functioning
like a sponge into which ideas are absorbed, a bucket into which ideas are
poured through the senses, a receiver to which ideas are transmitted, or a
computer into which data is transferred and stored. But, quite clearly, we
are not sponges, buckets, radio receivers or computers; nor do we have a
brain or any other organ that functions in such a manner that the use of
these analogies would imply. Our memories, for example, are an outcome of
learning and they are used in processes where there is learning, but there is
no memory organ. The function of the brain is to select and create; it has no
means of taking in information (Edelman, 1992). It is surely incumbent on
anyone who wishes to support the idea that there is learning by instruction
from without the learner to provide an account of the process by which the
informational elements are received, one which goes beyond analogy and
metaphor to address the nature of learners as biological phenomena. As yet,
no such account exists of learning by instruction from without.
It might be argued that associationism constitutes a refutation of my
claim, on the grounds that it is an account of learning by instruction from
without. There are, of course, numerous critiques of associationism (see, for
example, Popper, 1979[1972], ch 2, § 13), but what is important to the
present discussion is that associationism is a theory about how basic
informational elements come to be combined in the ‘mind’.
What
associationism does not provide is any kind of biological account of how
these various irreducible elements – the elements that are combined – ‘enter
the mind’ in the first place.
I am aware that Popper’s selectionist account of learning has itself
been construed as a metaphor because, for example, he proffers the idea of
the mind as a searchlight as opposed to the mind as a bucket (Popper,
1979[1972], Appendix I).
But although Popper uses the searchlight
metaphor, he does so within the context of a much broader theory, a
‘descriptive epistemology’ (Campbell, 1974, p. 413) which explains that the
© Joanna Swann, 2007
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same process, not merely a similar process, applies to the growth of objective
knowledge, individual learning, and the evolution of species. This process
was summarised by Popper in his simplified schema of conjecture and
refutation (as mentioned earlier). Evolutionary epistemology goes far beyond
simple metaphor, and its nature was well described some 33 years ago by
Donald Campbell (ibid.):
An evolutionary epistemology [is] at minimum an epistemology taking
cognizance of and compatible with man’s status as a product of
biological and social evolution. … evolution – even in its biological
aspects – is a knowledge process, and … the natural-selection
paradigm for such knowledge increments can be generalized to other
epistemic activities, such as learning, thought, and science.
Second, I invite anyone who wishes to defend the idea that there is
learning by instruction from without the learner to make a case for the
existence of basic informational elements (or sense data). Note also that
when basic informational elements are assumed to exist they are generally
also assumed to provide true or certain information. So the challenge is to
identify basic informational elements that are in some way true or certain.
Given what we currently know, I put it to you that, in Popper’s words, ‘these
data or elements do not exist at all. They are the inventions of hopeful
philosophers’ (Popper, 1979[1972], p. 63).
Third, if you would wish to argue that learners receive basic
informational elements from the environment, I would ask you to explain
why in any particular situation individuals receive some informational
elements and not others. I anticipate that one type of explanation would
refer to flaws in the ‘receiving mechanisms’ of would-be learners.
Explanations of this kind, however, usually beg the question of why people
with sensory disabilities or specific limitations of brain function are often
highly successful learners; that is, they compensate for what they cannot do
by developing what they can. This propensity is one we all possess. Also, an
explanation is required to account for the fact that even when there are no
assumed flaws in the learner’s receiving mechanisms, not everything that
could be absorbed is taken in. Selection seems to be a fundamental part of
the explanation.
5. WHAT IF THIS IS CORRECT?
It would be naïve of me to think that any persons present who have hitherto
assumed that, at least to some degree, learning involves the direct
transference of informational elements from the social or physical
environment will be persuaded to change their minds as a result of what I
have said. I hope, however, that even if you do not agree with the general
thrust of my argument you will be willing to consider its implications.
If learning by instruction from without is a myth, and if it is better to
view learning as invariably a critical and creative process of trial and errorelimination, then the advancement of learning through education and
teaching is not a matter of presenting people with basic information and
helping them to interpret and utilise it. Rather, it is a matter of encouraging
people to create ideas and test them. To return to one of the earlier
quotations from Popper (1979[1972], p. 148), imaginative criticism is the
© Joanna Swann, 2007
7
means by which we ‘transcend our local and temporal environment’. I posit
that formal systems of education generally do very little to bring about the
transcendence that Popper describes. Of course, students learn when they
are taught – they could scarcely do otherwise – but what they learn is often
not what their teachers intend. And, more importantly, we need to entertain
the idea that students’ learning may be significantly less than what it might
be. We should not be complacent about the success of our education
institutions; we have, I believe, the potential to ‘do education’ much better.
Traditionally, educationists have, in general, vastly underestimated
the human potential for imaginative criticism – because they have not
recognised the extent to which it lies at the heart of what we, including the
youngest children, do in order to succeed at even the most basic tasks.
When educationists act on the assumption that there is some direct
transference of information from the environment to the learner, they tend to
focus their efforts on what they think they can control – on their own input
as policymakers and/or teachers. The natural inclination of children to
engage in exploratory activity – spontaneous trial and error-elimination – is
then curtailed. What cannot be controlled is viewed with suspicion rather
than treated as the primary resource.
It follows that teachers initiate most of the planned learning activities,
and students are expected to rely on teachers for fundamental decisions
about what to do and when to do it. Mostly, too, students are not
encouraged to question or criticise the material with which they are
presented. The task of the student is to learn the syllabus, not question it.
For much of the time, students are expected to replicate the arguments of
others rather than develop arguments of their own. Creativity is a concept
largely confined to ‘the arts’, and outside of those fields of activity (and to
some degree even within them) it is not usually encouraged. Not only are
opportunities to engage in trial and error-elimination limited, many schools
are also unsafe places in which to discover errors and inadequacies because
revealing them tends to occasion a penalty of some kind. Teachers are put
under pressure to produce individuals who are able to perform a limited
range of tasks according to narrowly conceived standards.
In such
circumstances, the tendency is to penalise the student for failing to
understand, failing to give the prescribed answer, failing to agree, failing to
conform.
Formal education worldwide is largely controlled and organised by
people who wish, perhaps for all the right reasons, to instruct, people who
are preoccupied with a desire that children, adolescents and older students,
learn specific things, things that they, the controllers and organisers, deem
it important to teach. Thus a major obstacle to the exploitation of Popperian
selectionism in educational practice is that those who wield the most power
within formal systems are largely disinclined to favour the open-ended
pursuit of learning and they are not predisposed to encourage either
imagination or free-ranging criticality.
6. SO WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
One fairly common response to the arguments I’ve outlined in this
presentation is to say that Popper was wrong and that the substance of the
discussion is without ‘justification’. There are, of course, critiques of
© Joanna Swann, 2007
8
Popper’s work, but the rejection of his ideas is a more complex matter than
is often implied when the citation of a critique is a precursor to the hasty
dismissal of his arguments (see Burgess & Swann, 2003, for extended
discussion of this topic). In contrast, a fairly common reaction on the part of
Popperian thinkers is to suggest that Popper’s thesis with regard to learning
is ‘old hat’, that it is widely known and does not need restating. If only this
were true!
With regard to the educational implications of Popper’s selectionist
account of learning, there seem to be at least two distinct camps among
Popperians. Members of one camp, the one to which I belong, support a
learner-centred approach to teaching. In my own work, following that of
Tyrrell Burgess (1975, 1977, 1979), I argue for the development and
adoption of student-initiated curricula, that is, curricula conceived and
formulated by the students themselves. I have argued that student-initiated
curricula are crucial in fostering learner autonomy, in challenging students
to develop the assumptions that influence their everyday lives, and as a
means of helping students to deal with their learning problems (that is, what
they want to learn but are having difficulty learning) (for example, in Swann,
1983, 2006, 2007b).
Members of the other camp, seemingly the larger of the two, comprise
those who favour what Richard Bailey has called the ‘criticalist curriculum’
(Bailey, 2000, pp. 192-97, 199-206). The criticalist curriculum is a means
by which ‘children are introduced to “the best that has been known and
thought in the world’’’ (p. 194). It differs from conventional school curricula
in that critical discussion of public knowledge is a crucial element. By being
initiated into the practice of critical discussion, students become able to ‘reassess’ and facilitate the development of their cultural heritage – but, I
stress, only on the basis of someone else’s decision about the canon.
I don’t propose to end this paper with an argument in support of
student-initiated curricula, although I will certainly be inclined to defend the
concept if required to do so during the open discussion. But in preparing
this presentation it seemed that in order to advance the debate, Popperian
educationists perhaps must first focus on a more basic educational problem,
that of how to foster imaginative criticism – which I interpret as how to foster
creativity and criticality not only in the development and testing of solutions
to existing problems but also in problem formulation. This is a practical
problem, hence its solution requires us to act, not merely talk about the
issues or about what others might do (Swann, 2003a).
Towards a solution:
1.
I urge Popperians to promote, among educationists, discussion of
Popper’s key ideas about learning, as summarised in the set of three
quotations presented earlier in my presentation [at the beginning of
section 2 of the paper].
2.
I urge all those who have been persuaded that everything the student
thinks and does that is not inborn must have been created by the
student (largely as a reaction to the challenges posed by the
environment) to consider what this means for their own practice as
teachers and, if appropriate, as participants in an education system.
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3.
I urge those who are so persuaded not only to think but to act, to
engage in trial and error-elimination (a) with regard to their
interactions with others – by adopting and responding to following the
personal practical problem, ‘In my educational relationships, how can
I support the creativity and criticality of others?’, and, if appropriate,
(b) in their engagement with social structures – by adopting and
responding to ‘How can I promote the development of educational
structures that foster creativity and criticality?’ In respect of point (b),
it seems to me essential that we counteract the propensity to corral
children and older students in environments that inhibit autonomous
activity, that discourage creativity and criticality and generally limit
opportunities for trial and error-elimination.
NOTE
1.
In addition to the references provided in the main text of the paper,
sections of the argument draw on Swann (2007a, 2007b, 2007c and,
with Burgess, 2005).
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